Brakkton Booker

He covers a wide range of topics including issues related to federal social safety net programs and news around the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

His reporting takes him across the country covering natural disasters, like hurricanes and flooding, as well as tracking trends in regional politics and in state governments, particularly on issues of race.

Following the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Booker's reporting broadened to include a focus on young activists pushing for changes to federal and state gun laws, including the March For Our Lives rally and national school walkouts.

Prior to joining NPR's national desk, Booker spent five years as a producer/reporter for NPR's political unit. He spent most to the 2016 presidential campaign cycle covering the contest for the GOP nomination and was the lead producer from the Trump campaign headquarters on election night. Booker served in a similar capacity from the Louisville campaign headquarters of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2014. During the 2012 presidential campaign, he produced pieces and filed dispatches from the Republican and Democratic National conventions, as well as from President Obama's reelection site in Chicago.

In the summer of 2014, Booker took a break from politics to report on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

Booker started his career as a show producer working on nearly all of NPR's magazine programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and former news and talk show Tell Me More, where he produced the program's signature Barbershop segment.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Howard University and was a 2015 Kiplinger Fellow. When he's not on the road, Booker enjoys discovering new brands of whiskey and working on his golf game.

The U.S. Coast Guard says it has rescued the fourth and final crew member from an overturned car carrier vessel in waters off the coast of Brunswick, Ga., after reporting earlier in the day that all but one had been pulled to safety.

In a tweet Monday evening, the Coast Guard's 7th District Southeast, located in Miami, tweeted that "All crew members are accounted for. Operations now shift fully to environmental protection, removing the vessel and resuming commerce."

Mike Pompeo, the nation's top diplomat, took to the Sunday news talk shows to defend the administration's cancelling of a secret summit between the leadership of the Taliban and the president of Afghanistan. The meetings had been set to take place at Camp David days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, said it was the president's idea to hold the talks at the presidential retreat in Maryland, adding it was a "perfectly appropriate place" to do so.

The Trump administration says a deal between California and four carmakers to improve fuel efficiency may be illegal. The Justice Department has also launched a probe to see whether it violates antitrust laws. Together, the moves raise the stakes in a months-long standoff over efforts to weaken a key Obama-era climate rule.

Britain's House of Lords endorsed a measure Friday that would block Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan to leave the European Union next month without a deal in place, giving final approval to a bill the House of Commons passed earlier this week.

The House of Lords' passage was widely expected after the bill won approval in the House of Commons on Wednesday. The legislation now proceeds to royal assent — a formality that will result in its becoming law.

The scope of the calamity that Hurricane Dorian brought to the Bahamas is becoming clear, as rescue workers reach devastated sections of the island chain. The official death toll now stands at 30, but that number is expected to rise sharply in the coming days.

Dorian is now a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, lashing the southeastern coastline of the United States. It remains dangerous, despite being downgraded from the Category 5 rank it carried into the Bahamas.

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis says at least five people have died in the Abaco Islands, where Hurricane Dorian made landfall Sunday as "the strongest hurricane in modern records" to hit the archipelago.

Minnis described the hurricane as a "historic tragedy" that's brought "unprecedented and expensive" devastation to Abaco.

Loved ones of Jessi Combs, a well-known racer and a host of the popular science-themed television show Mythbusters, are speaking out days after she died attempting to break her own land speed record. She was 39 years old.

"I have never loved or been loved by anyone as much as this amazing woman," Terry Madden, a member of Combs' team said in an Instagram post. "She was the most amazing spirit that I have ever or will ever know."

Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson announced Wednesday that he will be resigning from his Senate seat at the end of the year. Isakson has been battling Parkinson's disease and cited health problems for why he's stepping aside with three years left in his current term.

Police in Hollywood, Fla., outlined criminal charges Tuesday against four former employees of a rehabilitation center, saying they were culpable in the deaths of a dozen patients nearly two years ago.

Those deaths came in the days after Hurricane Irma hit Florida in September 2017. The storm knocked out power to the air conditioning system at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills. Officials say the patients died from complications of heatstroke due to environmental issues.

Three people turned themselves in to police Monday to face criminal charges in connection with the deaths of a dozen patients at a South Florida rehabilitation facility days after Hurricane Irma in 2017.

A fourth person was arrested by authorities in Miami-Dade County.

Those charged all worked at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills when the storm knocked out a transformer that supplied power to the facility's air conditioning system.

AT&T, Sprint and Verizon and nine other telecommunications companies teamed up with attorneys general of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia to announce a new pact to eradicate a common scourge in America: illegal robocalls.